Her hands glided along the black and white keys as the music flowed through her veins and transported her back to a time where her heart was most content. People bustled around her as her music filled the place. Each person with their own troubles and problems. She hoped the music could soothe whatever ailed them, as it was for her.

The Key to My Heart is a heavy journey of a romance that follows Natalie, a woman who lost her husband in an accident and is still reeling with grief. Music is her connection to the past with Russ, but also hopefully a spark to help her move forward.

Despite what this cover depicts, this is not a holiday/winter themed romance (it’s honestly barely set in winter), so know that before you go into it if that’s what you were expecting. It is also dealing heavily with grief and loss, so this is not a lighthearted romance to escape in. What this book is though, is a beautifully written journey of what it’s like to lose someone and navigate the grief that comes with their disappearance in one’s life. How feelings of grief manifest as guilt and fear, as well as the weight of being stuck. How none of those feelings are wrong. Lia has a way with crafting words that just make you FEEL as a reader. And while I wasn’t a fan of the love triangle in this story, I loved watching Natalie grow as a person, while still validating her feelings of loss and heartbreak.

Read this if you want a romance that really dives into the darkness of loss and how it’s okay to be in those feelings while still moving forward in life and finding joy in the small and big things.

This is such a sweet book, sad but also hopeful, a romance but also so much more. When this novel starts, it’s been more than two years since main character Natalie’s husband died after an accident, leaving her a widow in her early 30s. Her friends are all pushing her to move on, but she’s still not over it. But after starting to find sheet music her husband loved at the train station piano she sometimes plays at, plus encountering some new people, and a little help from friends and family, she finally slowly starts coming back to life.

Well, I loved Lia Louis’s previous books Dear Emmie Blue and Eight Perfect Hours, but I loved this one even more! So, it’s official - Lia Louis is definitely on my must-read list. Her books all blend a lot of emotion and melancholy into romance/contemporary women’s fiction/British chick lit - think kind of the vibe of Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You trilogy.

A bittersweet rom com. That for a while I didn't think was going to give me a happy ending but it ended up surprising me. And while I won't say it's a favorite read of the year I did enjoy it.

A very enjoyable story from a new author for me. It’s been three years since Natalie’s husband died in a bicycle accident, and her friends have been trying to restart her life for much of that time, but she is stuck. She just lives day to day, working at a job with her sister and existing in the cottage that Russ loved and planned on refurbishing for them.
Everyone keeps introducing her to potential suitors, but she has no interest. Her music is stagnant and she’s hasn’t written anything, much less play, until she finds a piece of sheet music in the piano stool of the piano in the train station. It was one of Russ’ favorites and she begins to play that piano, and the music continues to appear, each having a connection. She begins to move along, stepping out of her mourning and looking forward!
This is a story of committed love and what loss does when a partner is removed. It’s about struggle and the effort it takes to climb out of that abyss. In Natalie’s case, it took the love of her friends, and her love of music to help her climb out! The heart is a fragile organ, we need it healthy to continue living, and fortunately, Natalie was able to find that key, among the music in a train station, to heal and live.
Lia Louis is a skilled story teller, fun, interesting characters and a wonderful story. My thanks to the author, NetGalley,and Simon and Schuster for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

A beautiful story of love and loss, the cost of love and strength of grief. No one can tell someone how long they should grieve a loss, but it seems this is what is happening for MC Natalie. After the loss of her husband, Natalie struggles to consider moving on without him. Then, piano sheet music is left for her and she considers whether the sheet music is a sign? This book was a beautiful and painful read but I enjoyed it quite a bit!

3.5 ⭐️ for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review and opinion.

I think unfortunately this author is not for me. I ended up DNF this book around 20%, I just couldn’t get into it. I know others loved this book, so I highly recommend checking out their reviews!

A beautiful book on grief and love. This was my first Lia Louise book and I really enjoyed it. Beautiful writing. I felt the heartbreak and grief but I also felt the joy and excitement as Natalie felt it.

My heart was broken for Natalie. Lia Louise, I thought, did a great job making us feel stuck and alone and sad and as heartbroken as Natalie was. Natalie Fincher lost her husband, the love of her life, in an accident. When we meet Natalie it has been 2 years since her husband died. She is grieving and is stuck not being able to allow herself to start to heal and move forward due to guilt and grief. Then music is left at the public piano in a train station that she plays at and slowly she starts to feel a spark of emotion, excitement and thus begins her healing journey.

I loved all the characters in this book - Priya, Lucy, Jason, Jodie, Joe, Shauna, and Tom. Thomas Button. I loved Tom and his patient support for Natalie.

This book was a beautiful journey of healing. I don’t want to say moving on but a beautiful story about moving forward after a loss.

This was my first book by Lia Louise and I will definitely be reading more books by her.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and to Lia Louise for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I love a book with a full intertwined cast of characters and this delivers on this. Don't let the cover fool you, this is not a holiday book in any way whatsoever, but once you realize that it's easy to get pulled into the story. I loved seeing the character development here, and while she made some bad decisions, overall I was so satisfied at this ending. 4 stars!

Natalie’s husband has been gone for 2 years now and all her friends and family think it’s time she moves on. But she just can’t seem to. She seems to feel stuck in the life she had with him-a cozy, fixer upper cottage, cowriting a musical and a happy life until fate intervened and took him from her. As she struggles to find her way without him, she visits the Tube station near the hospital and plays the community piano for the people passing by. One day when she sits down, there is sheet music there-specifically sheet music that connects to her lost husband Russ. At first she thinks it just a coincidence, but as the days goon and more music that is connected to Russ appears, she wonders if he somehow arranged it for her before he passed, or maybe someone else is involved? Is it someone from the local coffee shop she frequents? Maybe someone from the music therapy group she attends? She turns to her friend Shauna for guidance and is introduced to her son Tom, who helps her work through the mystery. But is there more to him than he lets on?
There were times this dragged for me and I didn’t want to go back to it and at other times I enjoyed it. I think overall it was fine, just nothing super memorable.
Thanks to Atria and NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for my review.

The Key to My Heart is the third book I’ve read from Lia Louis and I think it’s my new favorite!

When we meet Natalie Fincher, she is just going through the motions from day to day. Life has lost all meaning to her since she lost her beloved husband unexpectedly just over two years ago. She goes to work and she sees her friends enough to keep them from worrying about her too much. They all think she has been grieving long enough and should be ready to move on. I really loved how the author highlights how personal the grieving process really is and that there’s no set moment when a person should be ready to just get on with their lives. I also felt tremendous sympathy for Natalie because she was struggling so much. It was heartbreaking to see her just going through the motions and to learn that she has all but given up one of her life’s passions, playing piano, because she’s so lost in her grief.

Aside from loving Natalie, one of the big highlights of the book for me was when someone discovers Natalie has been anonymously playing at a London train station’s public piano and they start leaving sheet music on the piano for her to find. They leave it anonymously and it’s always one of her deceased husband’s favorite songs. I loved the little element of mystery that this added to the story and couldn’t wait to find out who was doing it and why. It also gave Natalie a much needed distraction as she continues to process her grief.

Aside from the poignant grief story and the intriguing sheet music mystery, I was also a huge fan of the “found family” that surrounds Natalie and helps her start to find her path forward. By the end of the story, Tom, Shauna, and several others who helped Natalie along the way, captured my heart just as much as Natalie did.

The Key to My Heart is a beautifully written story that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming as it explores grief and loss and whether it’s possible to find love and joy in life again after losing your soulmate.

Ooh my heart. This was a big warm cozy hug that occasionally brought tears to my eyes.⁣
⁣
Natalie is 2 years post losing her husband in a tragic accident at the age of 33… im 33 and I couldn’t imagine. She feels stuck between moving forward and going back and isn’t sure how to get there to find her true self again.⁣
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Her friends are pushing her to get back out there but some days it’s too much. She befriends a coffee shop owner, plays piano in an abandoned piano in a subway, and joins a music therapy class. She meets two wonderful men along the way but isn’t sure if she’s ready. ⁣
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Both Tom and Joe help guide her in finding who she wants to be, while also opening up her heart and making her feel things she hasn’t in so long.⁣
⁣
This journey she takes in her grief, as well as the journey Joe is taking in his grief, and Tom is taking in avoiding love after watching his parents difficult marriage over the years makes for such a beautiful heartwrenching and heart warming story that I binged all in one swoop. ⁣
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Can grief ever be overdone? It came close in Lia Louis’ latest story of love and loss. However, her ability to transform a story of deep mourning, depression and anguish with humorous observations and dialog sets Louis apart as creative writer who gets it and is able to brilliantly convey the pain, and the fight to move forward after catastrophic loss.

Natalie Fincher has lost her everything - best friend, best mate, best love. She is not without friends who are worried and trying to help her. While they are her greatest solace they are also her biggest problem. She keeps disappointing them and herself - unable or unwilling to move past her loss. One step forward, two back. It is the tempo of loss. I love the characters, Natalie’s friends do exactly what good friends should do by trying to help her move past her grief and get on with her life. The men who come into her life are so perfect in their thoughts and mistakes. Natalie’s music and attempts at self-help are inspired and courageous. There is actually a lot of bravery in those who touch Natalie and her story.

Lia Louis is a very talented author and while this isn’t my favorite of her books it was a story well told. Thank you Emily Bestler Books / Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for a copy.

First and foremost, please note that this is not a holiday romance. I feel this has been a point of confusion with the last two books written by Lia Louis. And if you go in with the idea that this is a fun holiday rom com, you are going to be disappointed. However, this story is so much more. It is a beautiful story of love and loss, of overcoming grief, and figuring out how to navigate life when without warning, the future you planned is taken from you. If you loved Dear Emmie Blue, which happens to be one of my all time favorite books, you will enjoy this one as well.

I thought this story had a great mix of themes. While romance isn’t the central aspect of this story, the beautiful love story that develops between friends is my favorite part of this story. I only wish we could have had more of the wonderful banter between the two. The way Louis develops her characters from story to story is always top notch. I feel as though I know them all inside and out. This then helps her to illustrate the significant growth her characters experience from start to finish, Natalie among them. By the time the story comes to its conclusion, I always feel as though her characters become my close friends.

I somehow managed to read this book via all three forms of media - a physical book, e-book and audiobook, and while I loved all three, my preference was audio. Victoria Fox did a remarkable job bringing Natalie to life and I think helped me to connect to her even more as a character. She also did a great job of narrating many other diverse characters, including our male MC. I think this would make a great immersive read in which you read the physical book alongside the audio.

Read if you like:
•heartwarming stories
•books about friendship
•character driven plot lines
•slow burn
•closed door romance

Thank you to Atria/Emily Bestler Books for my gifted ARC as well as my ebook via NetGalley. Available now.

I loved Lia Louis's novel, Dear Emmie Blue. I enjoyed last year's Eight Perfect Hours.
Her newest, The Key To My Heart, is solid as well. Maybe just not the right book at the right time for me.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for my eARC for review.
Natalie lost her beloved husband Russ two years prior. We navigate the waters of loss with her, as well as her friends and those she meets along the way.
She often plays a public piano at a London train station, only to find someone is leaving sheet music in the bench; songs that mean something to her and to Russ.
It's a story about hope and the power of music in healing and memories.
For me, there was more banter and less emotion than I expected. However, it's a well-written novel that Lia Louis fans should definitely check out.
Released on Dec. 6.

Natalie is a pianist who lost her husband two years ago in an accident. She's still grieving but it seems like the world expects her to be done. She's so lost she plays the piano in the subway. One day, she finds someone has left her sheet music of her husband's favorite song, a few days later she is left her wedding song. This is the story of how Natalie moves on. It's beautiful.

In The Key to My Heart by Lia Louis, Natalie is still struggling with her grief after losing her husband 2.5 years ago and when she finds someone keeps leaving sheet music on the piano bench that reminds her of her husband she begins to feel hope for the first time. This book is about finding herself again and maybe love?

I liked this book, but overall it just felt super slow to me. It meandered a lot, but ultimately the way this book shared grief and music therapy.

This was a fluffy romance. I can’t say it’s light since it deals with the heavy topic of grief, but it had its feel good, laugh out loud moments. I didn’t really care for the main character Natalie, she was a bit wishy washy for my taste. It was kind of slow to start and dragged a little in the middle, but overall it was a good read.

I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Prepare yourselves friends. The Key to My Heart will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions in the very best way.

When I reviewed Lia Louis’ Eight Perfect Hours last year, I wrote that she “wove a special kind of magic” with that book and I’m happy to report she does it again with The Key to My Heart. Lia is a master storyteller and an autobuy author for me.

This friends, is not a light-hearted book. If that is what you are after, please scroll on. But if you are looking for something a little deeper, something that will have you feeling ALL the feels, this is the book for you. It had me tearing up more than once as I followed Natalie’s story.

Natalie is stuck and with good reason. Her life simply isn’t the same since she lost her husband and she can’t seem to overcome her grief, even two years later. The joy of everything is just lost on her. Anytime she feels even a small glimpse of happiness, she feels guilty. Lia does an incredible job of addressing grief in this book. She once again deftly explores how grief shapes us as people. Through Natalie’s eyes, we see how she is coping and get great insight into how she is feeling. Natalie is a wonderfully constructed character. I just loved her. 

In this book Natalie ends up with two potential love interests – Tom and Joe. They are both great but admittedly I was cheering for Tom. He is just so witty and wonderful. Lia creates a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not Natalie will end up with either of them or neither of them and it kept me guessing right until the end.

I also loved the mystery aspect of the book as Natalie tries to figure out who is leaving her music on the piano in the train station. I found myself getting sucked right into the story wondering who it could be. I did not guess the end. The mystery kept the story moving and gave Natalie a great focal point to move through her grief.

The Key to My Heart is a wonderful story about grief, self compassion and finding ourselves after tragedy, you don’t want to miss.

Thank you, Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As romance readers, we tend to love the big grand gesture. The grovel, the secret getaway, the loud, romantic declaration of love. And yet true romance is found in the minutiae of every day life. It's quieter. Lia Louis captures this like no other. Natalie is absolutely heartbroken. She's frozen in time after losing her husband way too young. Years after the loss, her friends can't bear to see her so sad still and all but force Natalie to go talk to a guy while they are out for girls night. Natalie agrees because she loves her friends and just wants to get away from their pity looks. A great friendship comes from that meeting with the super cute and easygoing Tom.

I loved the way that Tom and Natalie become friends. The tiny gestures. The quiet conversations. The way they make one another laugh. So much goodness in this book comes from the friendships within. Natalie's friends and family are there when she works to fix the house that she and her late husband bought to renovate. They encourage her when she meets the charming Joe and begins to consider dating. They listen when Natalie talks about the mystery that surrounds who has started leaving her sheet music at the piano in the train station. Natalie wonders if it could be her late husband sending her messages or someone else altogether.

Louis deals with grief and how we grow and change out of that darkness beautifully. I loved seeing Natalie, Joe, Tom, and Tom's mother, Shauna, all grow out of their loss. There is so much vulnerability and strength. Tossed in with lighter moments full of banter and laughter, The Key to My Heart is a perfect blend of all that makes up the joy of life. And there is still the big grand gesture that takes your heart away. Read this. You are sure to love it.

“That is the thing with Tom. He really makes me laugh. Genuinely. That sort of cheek-aching, belly laughing about everything and nothing all at once. The sort of laughter that leaves you feeling like light and warm afterward. Therapized.”

Okay Lia Louis, I’m convinced. You can’t write a bad book. I absolutely adored Dear Emmie Blue and Eight Perfect Hours and now we can add The Key to My Heart to that list!

The angst!! Wow. Grieving the loss of her husband two years later, I could really feel Natalie’s emotions. I couldn’t help but be on her side. The pressure from her friends and family to move on made me angry for her and I just wanted to wrap her up in a warm blanket. But it was really beautiful to see Natalie turn the corner on her grief with the help of some new friends that let her be the Natalie she that she is now. For me, the writing was on the wall for the romance from the very beginning. I just really enjoyed seeing how Natalie was going to work through getting there. And I really loved that she was clueless for most of the story.

The mystery behind the piano sheet music was such a fun thread in this story. It had its highs and lows, but it was ultimately so healing for Natalie. I must say that despite what I said about her friends and family earlier, I did end up loving them as well. They truly just wanted what was best for Natalie and they always stuck by her.

My favorite parts of this book were Shauna, Foxes, words and the photographs. All were integral in Natalie’s growth and healing and made my heart swoon. There is so much beauty in this story and I highly recommend experiencing it for yourself.

CW: some language throughout, death of a spouse, women’s fiction

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for an advanced copy. My thoughts are my own.